On the way to San Sebastian I stopped off for the night in the little village of Monreal. It was a quaint little place with narrow tiled streets. The entire village was built of stone. It was around 8.30 in the evening and all was quiet. My room was in a house in one of those streets. I checked in and freshened up then took a walk out to the bar out on the main road.

It was dusk as I left the house and walked up the little tiled street. I was shocked to find it full of little old ladies in flowered dresses. I suspected that they´d just come from the nearby church. Hearing shouting I turned to see three old ladies confronting a fat youth who was towering over them. The old lady in the middle was especially furious and her hard wrinkled face was contorted with anger as she shouted at him. The lad wore an expression of indifference as he shouted back, ´¡Puta (bitch)!´ The two ladies either side of the one in the middle then had to drag her back as she lunged forward to square up to the mouthy youth. An older man then had to restrain the youth. The many old ladies dotted around the street looked on with concern as the old lady then lashed the youth viciously with her tongue. Suddenly I realised there and then that you should never cross a Spanish woman. The respective parties then managed to drag each fighter off in different directions along the street and peace soon ensued once again. It seems that even the little villages of Spain suffer from nightime violence; only here it´s with little old ladies in flowered dresses.

It´s a problem I suppose when you have lots of them all out on the street at once having consumed a lot of red wine. Perhaps if the churches were to stay open all night then these old ladies would drift off home at different times and thus avoid potential confrontations with youths in future? It´s something to consider.